Motivation Techniques

Motivation and encouragement are very important components of any successful health promotion program. Along with the motivation techniques discussed in the HealthMatters curriculum, our groups across the state have developed a few of our own ways to encourage and motivate one another.

Motivation Chart

Participants were asked to come up with a few things that they should be doing every time the health class met, we narrowed down to four major tasks.

Our group selected:

drink water without being prompted,

bring you’re A-game energy,

motivate others,

and beating or improving your personal record.

We made a poster showing these four tasks and hung it up during each class to serve as a reminder. After we established these key tasks, whenever a participant completed one of them, their name was written down and put it into a bag to be drawn out for prizes on our last day of class. Seeing this encouraged other participants to do the tasks as well. So the more times they completed those actions, the more times they got their name put in the bag which increased their chances of winning the prize. At our very last class, three names were drawn out of the bag and each of those participants got a door prize. For prizes we were able to obtain items donated such as a $10 Subway gift card, $20 gift card to a local grocery store, and a set of hand weights a volunteer purchased at TJMaxx for donation.

Team Building Chant

At the end of every class, everyone got in a circle to do a team building chant so we could end the class on an encouraging note. Participants got to choose what phrase or word they wanted to use based on that particular day’s topic. For instance, on the day we talked about nutrition, participants choose to say “Healthy Foods!” This was a great way to encourage the participants to remember what they learned and to use it outside of class.

Constant Inclusion & Encouragement

It is really important for participants to feel included in the program and for them to play a role in the implementation of lessons and activities. We encouraged participants to help lead warm up, cool down, and selected activities each day. We also had participants take turns choosing songs to listen to while doing the physical activities or games. Participants really liked getting to customize the activities and make it their own.

One Minute Rule

When participants were feeling tired or didn’t feel like participating in an activity, we used the one minute rule. They had to participate in the activity for at least one minute. After the one minute was up, no one ever sat back down, they kept going! This is a great way to encourage participants to get involved!

I C.A.N.’T.

Something that we heard every now and then was “I can’t”. When we heard this, we would always encourage participants to try their best. We learned that I C.A.N.’T. actually stands for: